Volume 9, Issue 2 - Pillars of a Sacred World The 1622 Canonizations and the Rise of Modern Catholic Sanctity; Guest Editors: Franco Motta and Eleonora Rai

This article examines the particular place of the quintuple canonization of 1622 in the long history of papal canonization. While the papacy gradually imposed its control over the creation of new saints in the Middle Ages, in the Modern Era it faced a double challenge to its practice. On the one hand, Luther condemned the elevation to the altars in 1523 of the Saxon bishop Benno of Meissen, in which he saw the creation of a new idol. And, in fact, a long silence from the Roman Curia followed. On the other hand, when Sixtus V decided to canonize a new saint in 1588 in response to the insistent request of Philip II of Spain, the Roman Curia was confronted with strong pressure from the new orders to have their founder canonized in the context of a multiplication of cults of beati that was beyond its control. The quintuple canonization of 1622 was the triumph of these orders and their founder, but Urban VIII drew radical consequences in the years that followed. He decided to impose new rules of procedure that allowed Rome to extend its monopoly to the cult of the beati and to regain for a few decades the parsimony of medieval canonization.

The five new saints added to the feast days of the Catholic Church in 1622 occurred in the middle of two wars: the 30 Years’ War in Central Europe between Protestants and Catholics, and the resumption of the struggle by the Dutch to gain independence from Spain. Coming as the result of intense lobbying by different ecclesiastical and political interests, the canonization of 1622 provided an excellent window to observe the mentality of Counter-Reformation Europe. This is accomplished by a close reading of the reports of festivities and celebrations that took place in Rome, Prague, cities of Catholic Germany, in France and Lorraine, in Madrid, where the Spanish capital celebrated their four new national saints, and finally in Antwerp, near the frontlines in the Spanish Netherlands. In the uneven reception of the five saints, those of the Jesuits Ignatius and Xavier stood out, as models for Spanish military valor and global empire.

Pope Gregory XV raised five holy persons to official sanctity in a grand ceremony in Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome on 12 March 1622. Three of the new saints were sixteenth-century Spanish contemporaries: the Discalced Carmelite Teresa of Ávila and the Jesuits Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. The saints were celebrated according to personas that were rooted in the framework of sanctity inherent to the processes for official holiness, that is, the official character of their deeds, virtues, and miracles. Setting aside miracles, this paper centers on Teresa’s deeds and virtues, which have been less well understood than those of her Jesuit counterparts. The nature of her holy image emerges from a highly selective comparison with the Jesuits’ deeds and virtues as presented in word and image in Rome in March 1622. On the basis of written and visual documents tied to Teresa’s processes and the canonization ceremony, I reinterpret two aspects of her image as promulgated in 1622: the way in which her active and contemplative lives were inextricably linked to her reform of the Carmelite Order; and the role and character of her virtues.

This paper is devoted to the spectacular ceremonies organised in the Low Countries to celebrate the canonisations of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. It focuses in particular on how local festive culture, characterised by a long tradition of spectacular Joyous Entries, has shaped these events. Compared to these previous models, what kind of new and specific language was created to express the transcendence of an absentee, the saint, and through him the Divine? Did a more obvious relationship exist between wonder and the sacred? We seek to answer these questions through the study of a particular case: the festivities organised by the university town of Douai. We explore the ways in which texts and images propose, through rather sophisticated displays, a re-creation of what happened rather than a representation.

Roman engraver Francesco Villamena (ca. 1565–1624) produced a print in 1600 that illustrated the life and miracles of Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus. It featured a conversion of a local Jew named Isaac described as the movement, possibly miraculously, of another’s heart by Ignatius. Villamena’s engraving, however, must be contrasted with lives of Ignatius written by Pedro de Ribadeneyra (1526–1611). A Jesuit of Jewish ancestry, Ribadeneyra’s accounts, like the Roman print, spoke of the conversion of Isaac. Its 1601 iteration, however, explicitly situated the event among the founder’s miracles. This article examines the place of persons of Jewish ancestry in conceptions of Early Modern sanctity. With this case study, I will compare the print cultures of Rome and Madrid as well as visual and written accounts of this conversion to help us better understand the role of religious minorities in the determination of Catholic sainthood.

This essay focuses on Francis Xavier (1506–1552), the first saint of the Society of Jesus, canonised with its founder Ignatius of Loyola in 1622, and three differing perceptions of his sanctity, both within his own religious order and outside it. The work of Alessandro Valignano gives a first introduction soon after Xavier’s death, with complaints about how most of the testimonies of the future saint were exaggerated and not particularly edifying (1580s). The second text is the manuscript Relatio Rotae (1619), commissioned by Pope Paul V for Xavier’s canonisation, which contains many pages testifying to the same miracles and prophecies Valignano criticised. The final and main source is the treatise Asia by Daniello Bartoli (1653). The Ferrarese Jesuit dedicated the first half of it to Xavier’s life and death, and drew from multiple sources, always proud of his historical detachment, sobriety, and discretion. The examination of these sources highlights all of the negotiations involved in sanctity, especially in such an important period for the Roman Catholic Church in general, and for the Society of Jesus in particular.

For the four-hundredth anniversary of the canonization of Philip Neri, this paper proposes to analyze important elements of Neri’s sanctity. In particular, it focuses on what Oratorian hagiographers emphasized about his life and his holiness in their creation of his saintly reputation. I argue that death and dying was a central aspect of Philipine sanctity. In his life and ministries, modeling himself after Christian solitary ascetic monks and charitable caregiving mendicants, Philip Neri’s life revolved around death.

1622 was a crucial year for the Discalced Carmelite Order. This essay intends to highlight and connect a series of events surrounding the fateful canonisation of the foundress Teresa of Ávila on 12 March 1622. On 6 January of that year, the Congregation of Propaganda Fide had been founded with the fundamental contribution of Carmelite missionaries. On 8 May 1622, the important Carmelite Church of San Paolo Apostolo in Rome was re-consecrated to Santa Maria della Vittoria, with celebrations and popular processions, in memory of the “victory” of the White Mountain in 1620 over the Protestant Bohemian troops, favoured by the intercession of Maximilian of Bavaria’s military chaplain, Carmelite Dominic of Jesus Maria. In the years that immediately followed, numerous male and female foundations dedicated to the newly-canonised St. Teresa proliferated in Rome and Italy, according to common iconographic and conventual models elaborated centrally by the order’s new hierarchies.

Neither before nor after the multiple canonization processes of 1622 have so many founders of religious orders been canonized at the same time. When examining in detail the historic processes of the founders, however, it is not generally possible to identify smooth and rapid procedures leading to their canonization. In the history of the Congregation of Rites, there were multiple hurdles and forms of resistance in the Congregation itself. The reason for the swift canonizations of 1622 was not in reality the founding of an order, but the ecclesiastical interests of the Pope and the Curia in highlighting the important protagonists of Catholic Reform. In addition, the new saints were associated with the struggle against heresies and the defence of the Apostolic See.